GL Pro Tips - Primary Navigation

Every Wednesday, Guild Launch Pro Tips will explore common issues, a look at features as well as creative ideas on how to use the Guild Launch system. This week, Mike will help you modify your Primary Navigation.

You know those links on the site that take you to your Forums, Rapid Raid, Guild Roster, etc.? That is called the Primary Navigation and it can be modified. You can add, remove, rename, reorganize and a few other things we are going to talk about today.

The first thing you want to do is go to your Admin section and click the Template & Customization tab. On the left is a link for Primary Navigation and that is where we want to go. For the most part, these options are self explanatory but I will go through each of them.


Current Navigation


If you have a new site, your list of Current Navigation will be longer than my test site but all of the options are the same. The arrows are used to change the order of the links. The link at the top will appear first in the Primary Navigation while the link at the bottom is last. I note this so site with a horizontal navigation instead of vertical like the list will understand the placement.

Clicking the link name will open the page, clicking the (x) will remove it from the list and clicking (Edit) will open the options to the right in my screen shot. Lets talk a bit about those options.

Link Title is the name that will be displayed in the Primary Navigation and the Link URL is the address of the page. Editing the URL for a Guild Launch default link is not suggested. Editing the Title however is a great way to localize your Primary Navigation if your site is for non-English speaking players.

Some users want an image instead of text in their Primary Navigation and you can use the Optional Image URL field for this. If you do not want to use an image, leave it blank. Make sure the image is uploaded somewhere (Like your File Library) and put the URL of that somewhere in the field.

Pro Tip - If you want to use a unique font for your Primary Navigation, images are the way to do it. Simply create an image and type the name of the link with the font you want. This will make sure every user will view the font you want even if they do not have it on their computer.

The (Optional) Link Target field generates a lot of questions. By default all links will open in the same window and the New Window option opens the page in a second window or tab. But what is this iFrame Embed option? The iFrame Embed option will open your content in the middle of your Guild Launch site with all of your widgets and content on the sides.

The iFrame Embed option is different from Same Window because it will take any page and put it "inside" of your Guild Launch site instead of replacing your site. For a working example, check out the items in your Tools tab. All of those links work using the iFrame Embed option.


Basic Link Types


The Basic Link Types are the default links. If you remove the link to the Wiki but want to add it back to your site, you would use this option. Just select the link from the drop down box and click the Add Default Link box.


User Created Links


Do you want to have a link in your Primary Navigation that goes to another page such as Google? User Created Links will allow you to do just that. You will notice that User Created Links have the same options that editing a link has. Everything I discussed above applies here except instead of editing the link, you are adding to the Link List.


Custom Site Page


This option will allow you to easily add a Custom Page to your Primary Navigation. Custom Pages are created by clicking the Create Page link in the Site Admin widget on your site:


Once the Custom Page has been created, you can use this option to add it to your Primary Navigation.

Hopefully I have been able to clear up some of the confusion about Primary Navigation and point out another tool available to you to customize your site. Comment on this post and let us know what you have done with your Primary Navigation.

Keep those questions coming. See you next week.

~Mike

GL Pro Tips - Maps & Character Options

Every Wednesday, Guild Launch Pro Tips will explore common issues, a look at features as well as creative ideas on how to use the Guild Launch system. This week, Mike will discuss two new features in the Guild Launch 6.1 release; Maps and Multi-Class/Spec games.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Pro Tips! I had originally planned today's topic to be about Custom Roster Columns but decided to highlight two of our newest features instead. Not only does Guild Launch offer Maps so you can see where your guild mates are located, but we now support Multi-Class and Multi-Spec games!

Maps. As Jun mentioned, he had been working on adding map functionality to our sites. Using longitude and latitude, you can show your guild where you are located! Maps can be found on the Guild Roster by clicking the (you guessed it), Maps tab. Going there will show you something like:



Adding yourself to the map is simple. Click the "Find your coordinates by clicking here!" link to be taken to a new page to find your Longitude and Latitude, then copy and paste that information into the proper text box. Click submit and you are all done.

Pro Tip - For privacy concerns, Guild Launch suggests that you do *NOT* use your actual address. Instead, zoom in to the closest city and place the + in the middle of the screen over it on the map and use those coordinates.

Pro Tip - Being able to add yourself to a map requires you to be logged in *AND* a member of the guild site.


Multi-Class and Multi-Spec. As we grow and start to accommodate features for more games, sometimes we have to change the way our original system works. This feature does just that. Games like Final Fantasy XI, Runes of Magic and Phantasy Star Universe allow you to have a character with more than one class. In World of Warcraft, you can now have multiple specs. As of now, you can display those choices on your Guild Roster.

Now when you add a character to your guild site and your game supports Multi-Class/Spec, you will be presented with the new options as seen in the shots below:



In the Runes of Magic screen on the left, I have selected Warrior and Priest as my two classes since I like to hit hard and not die. In the World of Warcraft screen I am a Druid that has chosen Balance and Feral as my two specs; Balance for raiding and Feral for PvP.

On my guild roster, it will show those choices automatically now so you no longer need to set up Custom Roster Columns to do this! Below is an example:


As you can see in that screen shot, there are two characters that do not have any data entered. You can correct this or modify your current information by clicking on the Character name and scrolling down to the Character Info section.

If your game supports Multi-Class and Multi-Spec, but is not representing this when making or editing a character, please email support@guildlaunch.com and let me know what game you play.

That wraps up this week for GL Pro Tips. I have brought to light two of many features we provide. Go back to your Guild Sites and start filling up those maps!

~Mike

Cool things coming soon...

After working on sigs, I began researching geocoding. From Google's mapping API to Microsoft's, there's a lot one can do with these robust tools. Originally, I was aiming to integrate Google maps into my project but there are some rules that Google enforces that hindered my development; in order to develop on an intranet you pretty much have to fork out a crap ton of loot for their enterprise version. Having found that out, Microsoft's version seem to fit our needs.

Funny story, I wanted to get this out on our normal release schedule and ran into a snag towards the end of last week and the beginning of this week. I had the code all laid out, inserting into the db but it wasnt showing up on the map. Drove me crazy. Clicking around the map furiously, I guess my finger rolled over the wheel and zoomed the map out. I was focused in on a certain point on the map and the points that I inserted were Cozumel, Mexico and Vernazza, Italy. Nowhere near where I was focused on. The wonderful joys of programming.

We'll be adding more features with mappings but as of right now, you'll have to wait until the code gets pushed out to see what it can do...

GL Pro Tips - HTML Widget

Every Wednesday, Guild Launch Pro Tips will explore common issues as well as creative ideas on how to use the Guild Launch system. This week, Mike will discuss how glorious the HTML widget is and describe a few "out of the box" ideas on its use.

If you were to ask me the most exciting addition we have made at Guild Launch, my answer would be the HTML Widget. Almost every widget related request I receive can be accomplished with the HTML Widget and its uses are almost limitless.

Displaying WoWJutsu rank information, Guild Officers, Chat Rooms and even moving your Primary Navigation to the right hand side; it is all possible with the HTML Widget.

The first thing you will want to do is add your HTML Widget to your Guild Launch site. You can add widgets by going to the Admin section and clicking the Add Widget link in the Widgets section on the first page:

Sub Pro Tip - Once you have added a widget you can click the Pencil icon to change the widgets name, viewing permissions and which pages it will display on.

Lets name this widget 'Testing the Awesomeness', and leave all of the other options alone for now. Click your guild name in the top, right-hand corner of the page to be taken back to your Guild Homepage. You should see the HTML Widget named Testing the Awesomeness and an [Edit] link to the right of the title. Click that link and you will see something similar to:


The background color will be different depending on the Template and CSS settings for your site. Think of this as a very simple, Microsoft Word. You can type text, highlight it and click the B button to make the text bold, for example. This is the easiest way to use the HTML widget and is known as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) view.

If you type something and highlight it, you will be able to turn it into a link by clicking the 3 chain link icon. Using this view, you could easily type a list of Guild Officers and link each name to their Member Profile or add a flash video by clicking the movie strip icon and providing it with a URL.

What if you know HTML or want to paste HTML into the widget to display something such as your WoWJutsu rank icon? Easy! Switch to HTML view by clicking the HTML button. In the pop-up you can insert HTML to display that item on your site. You would also paste your code for an HTML based Chat room in the Code View box.

Remember that the HTML Widgets flexibility is where it is powerful. The Linkbox Widget is great to display your links, but what if you want to use images instead of text? What if you want the text to be colored fireball fuchsia or displayed in a certain order? The HTML Widget solves these problems and is very easy to use.

Comment to this post and show us how you have used the HTML Widget. See you all next week!

~Mike

New Template Preview!

Behold, a new template! A preview of the new one anyways. I am currently working on a heavy WoW themed template using Wrath of the Lich King art. I am a huge fan of a fixed width template. This one is made to work as a fixed width, otherwise you wouldn't get the metal / wood texture on the sides. I will also be doing one similar for the upcoming release of Ulduar. So what do you guys think of the preview? I am lovin it!